The next-generation iPhone will blend elements of older-generation Apple phones with a radical home-button free design and a larger display, latest leaks suggest.

Images sourced by Mobile Fun purporting to be mock-ups for cases for Apple’s hotly anticipated kit hint at a handset that does away with a physical home button in favour of a “touch sensitive ovaloid area” that will apparently enable owners to return to the home screen using multi-touch gestures.

The handset also features a smaller bezel (that’s the border area around the display), which along with removing the home button, frees up space for a four-inch screen. That’s 0.5-inches larger than the and puts it broadly in line with rival Android kits.

More surprising perhaps amid the far-reaching, fashion-forward changes is that Apple has also taken inspiration from its past for the phone. Especially in the form of the curved back that recalls the ageing iPhone 3G, as the company moves away from the boxy, square look of its current-generation phone.

The move is thought to enable Apple to reposition its phone’s antennae, after situating them at the side of the iPhone 4 was deemed the primary cause of the reception problems that blighted that handset.